The Turkish Constitutional Court has decided in a recent ruling that 4,25 square meters of living space per inmate in prison, including common living areas, is “sufficient.”
The decision concerns an imprisoned judge who was jailed following the controversial coup attempt July 15, 2016 on charges of being a member of the Gülen movement. Mehmet Hani Baki, jailed in a prison in the southern province of Osmaniye, made a complaint to the judge of execution against the prison on the grounds that the ward he stayed in had a capacity of 16 but was housing 25 inmates.
The Turkish government has arrested at least 2,431 judges and prosecutors and dismissed 4,424 others since a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016, a Constitutional Court general assembly ruling revealed on early August 2017.
Once Baki’s demand for the number of inmates in his ward to be decreased was overturned, this time he applied to the Osmaniye’s 2nd High Criminal Court. Baki’s demand was again overturned by the court, which led him to take his case to the Constitutional Court.
According to a report by Hurriyet Daily News on Monday, in a statement sent to the top court, the prison administration admitted there were only 16 bunk beds in the ward, but the remaining nine people were provided with floor beds. It also said each prisoner was left with 4,25 square meters of personal space, including common living areas.
The Second Section of the Constitutional Court rejected Baki’s demand for less crowded wards and said the situation was a result of the imprisonment of thousands of people following the coup attempt in 2016.
“As there are 4,25 square meters left per person, including common living areas such as the kitchen and prison yard, a sufficient standard has been concluded. It cannot be said occasionally sleeping on the allocated floor bed and instead of a bunk bed causes heavy physical and psychological burden on the applicant,” the ruling claimed.
The Second Section of the Constitutional Court’s President Engin Yıldırım, however, objected against the ruling. “Overcrowding prison wards can understandably be necessary for a period of time, but in the case of this applicant, it is unacceptable for prisoners to be kept in such an environment for a long period, which exceeds a year. Prisoners, including the applicant himself, having to take turns sleeping in front of the toilet for over a year conflicts with human dignity,” he said.
According to a report released by Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CH= in May 2018, there are currently 228,993 people in Turkey’s prisons, 140,248 of whom have been convicted of a crime, while 88,745 are in pre-trial detention. These figures show that the prison population in Turkey has increased by 285 percent since the AKP came to power in 2002. Due to the high prison population and lack of adequate space for prisoners, more than 20,000 inmates sleep in shifts, the report said.
Turkish prisons are hosting some 27,000 prisoners more than its overall capacity, according to CHP deputy Gamze Akkuş İlgezdi. According to the information shared by İlgezdi at Human Rights Commission at the Turkish Parliament in February 2018, there are 235,888 peoples in all prisons across Turkey which is above the maximum capacity by 27,000 people or 12,9 percent. Prisoners include 2,949 children, 9,700 women, among them 45 pregnant, İlgezdi tweeted Wednesday.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Turkey have been the subject of legal proceedings in the last two years on charges of membership in the Gülen movement since the coup attempt in July 2016, a Turkish Justice Ministry official told a symposium on July 19, 2018.
“Legal proceedings have been carried out against 445,000 members of this organisation,” Turkey’s pro-government Islamist news agency İLKHA quoted Turkish Justice Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Ömer Faruk Aydıner as saying.
Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
Turkey has suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 judges, teachers, police and civil servants since July 15. On December 13, 2017 the Justice Ministry announced that 169,013 people have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup.
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced on April 18, 2018 that the Turkish government had jailed 77,081 people between July 15, 2016 and April 11, 2018 over alleged links to the Gülen movement.
The post Turkey’s top court rules 4,25 square meters space sufficient for prisoners appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkeys-top-court-rules-425-square-meters-space-sufficient-for-prisoners/
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